Ohio State announced Friday evening that the university has established “a post-pandemic operations task force to direct the return to appropriate on-campus operations once the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) has been deemed contained.”

The university has not determined a timetable for students to return to campus, but Ohio State president Michael Drake said in a statement that establishing the task force will speed up the process of returning to campus once the threat of COVID-19 has been mitigated.

“The fight against COVID-19 remains a real and immediate threat to all of us. Ohio State is actively engaged in this fight and in moving forward into a safer future,” Drake said. “We established this task force to engage in rigorous planning and to accelerate our return once it is safe to do so.”

Gail Marsh, Ohio State's senior vice president and chief strategy officer, will chair the task force. A safe campus and scientific advisory subgroup, which “will use a data-driven approach for determining when it is safe to begin transitioning back onto campus,” will be chaired by College of Public Health dean Amy Fairchild and vice chaired by College of Nursing dean Bernadette Melynk.

“All university units have begun transition planning while still responding to the crisis at hand,” Drake said. “The task force will align planning across the wide spectrum of functions and operations necessary to the university’s return to on-campus operations.”